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• The star-studded Great British Tea Party at the Schneider cafe
near the World Economic Forum’s Congress Center was the first time that the
UK has ever done anything officially to promote Britain at Davos.

Joining David Cameron and George Osborne were Lily Cole (model), Tim
Berners-Lee (inventor of the world wide web), Jimmy Wales (founder of
Wikipedia) and not Mick Jagger. As Boris Johnson commented, “you
can’t always get what you want”.

• Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, showed a keen
interest in the weather. “Good to be back in Davos. Record snowfall here -
highest in January for 69 years,” she tweeted. Six-foot snowdrifts around
town were reported.

• The eurozone debt crisis is not giving bankers quite the
headache it was a year ago, according to Bob Diamond, chief executive of
Barclays.

“2011 was a year of great fear around [sovereign debt risk]. Going into 2012
we feel somewhat more comfortable because progress has been made,” he said.

The mood was still cautious given the growth challenges yet to be faced, he
added, but bankers had praised steps toward fiscal union in the eurozone.

“The crisis has been caused by the incompetence of some governments and a lack
of concentration and focus on what Europe should be about.”

• Lord Coe told Davos that far from burdening British taxpayers,
the London Olympics was an “absolute godsend” to the ailing economy.

“The Olympics has been a fantastic catalyst in a very difficult economic
environment, domestically and globally,” providing jobs and contracts for
British companies, he said.

On the question of the rising Olympic budget, he added: “We have always been
very tight as an organising committee with our budget. When we were bidding,
we were bidding at the high water mark of the global economy but we were
still talking about delivering the games responsibly.

• Deirdre Hipwell of The Times spottedEd Miliband
and David Cameron walking towards one other along the main corridor of the
Congress Center in Davos. Hand to hand combat perhaps? Or an experiment
formulated by the scientists at CERN?